My 2025 Writing Goals

Hey friends! It’s a new year, and while New Year’s resolutions feel a little overhyped to me, it’s a good a time as any to set writing goals. I try to use the SMART method of goal-setting because it’s very concrete and works well to keep my ADHD brain grounded. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what I’m putting in motion for the coming year. 

1) Finish 4 Articles For The Tarra World Anvil Wiki 

One of my biggest ongoing projects has been putting together a public wiki on World Anvil for Tarra, the world of the novel I’ve already published. While it’s far from done, I do have plenty of articles in various stages of partial completion. So my first goal for 2025 is to finish at least 4 of those WIP articles and post them to the wiki. Note that “at least”. If I can finish more than that, I definitely won’t be complaining. But given the other large-scale goals next up on my list, I want to make sure I don’t overextend myself. Gotta remember the A for Achievable in the SMART acronym, right? 

2) Draft The Scripts For The First Chapter Of My Animated Series

Making my own animated video series is the project I’m most excited to start this year, hands-down. The tentative title is The Aloryn Saga. I’m beyond excited to introduce you to the cast of characters and the world. I’m still in the early character and prop design stages with the actual art, so I probably won’t be posting any WIP animations until next year or later. Full disclosure, I’m also not as confident in my art as I am in my writing skills. Starting with the writing aspect of this project has made it feel a lot less daunting and allowed me to get more done instead of just sitting there psyching myself out. 

This goal was originally just “start drafting scripts” but that felt too nebulous to be a proper SMART goal, so I revised it to keep it Specific and Measurable. 

3) Finish Draft 1 Of A Second Novel 

Okay, this one could be a whole post all by itself. A full post on it will be coming soon actually, but for now I’ll just say this: I’ve been mostly focusing on short stories and other blog content lately, and there’s still plenty to be done on that. But I’m feeling ready to gear up and tackle a full-length project again. I have several novel ideas that are partially outlined and they all seem equally enticing to write. But again, gotta remember the A for Achievable. So for the full post, I’ll be introducing each of those ideas and taking a poll to see which one y’all like the best.

4) Do A Full Read-Through On 2 Of My Writing Craft Books!

I’ll be the first to admit it: I buy more books than I read. Writing craft books are no exception.

But they won’t teach me anything useful just sitting on shelf across the room, because unfortunately, I haven’t mastered learning by telepathic osmosis yet. So for my final goal of the year, I’m on a mission to read two of those books cover-to-cover. I’ll be attempting to take notes too. As previously mentioned, I’m ADHD, and new information just doesn’t really stick in my brain unless I write it down. 

I’ll be posting a retrospective on all these goals this December, and we’ll see how far I got!